As music lovers, we all have one thing in common: we want the gigs, club nights and festivals we attend to be an enjoyable, memorable experience. But sadly, for some, this isn’t the case.

Thursday, is International Women’s Day. It’s no coincidence that we have chosen this empowering and inspiring time of solidarity to announce a partnership with Safe Gigs For Women.

We will be working alongside this amazing organisation to combat sexual harassment and assault at live music events.

The partnership will see Skiddle championing and supporting Safe Gigs For Women; aiming to reduce the number of cases of sexual harassment at gigs, club nights and music festivals by taking part in a series of campaigns, awareness raising events and fundraising activities.

Whilst Safe Gigs For Women are established in their work with gig-goers, venues and artists such as Frank Turner and Enter Shikari, this partnership is the first of its kind with a ticketing outlet – often the first port of call for customers wanting to attend a gig, club night or festival.

Why does this matter?

We feel everyone should have the opportunity to attend without feeling threatened or harassed. The fact many women do have to put up with unwanted and uninvited attention is inexcusable and as an industry we need to work together to stop this.

Skiddle have been selling tickets for live music events for almost two decades and we have a huge passion for what we do. The partnership with Safe Gigs For Women shows our solidarity for the cause and our determination to use our platform and our events to inform and change behaviour. We hope by working together we can ensure all live music events are safer and more welcoming spaces in the future.

We also asked Safe Gigs For Women to comment on the partnership. They said:

“We are incredibly excited by the opportunities that a partnership with Skiddle can offer our organisation. By working with a ticketing platform of their size, we hope to increase the reach of our message right across the UK, to events of all sizes.

“We want everyone to attend events knowing that they have a right to be respected, and anyone who violates or abuses that is not welcome and their actions will not be tolerated. Safe Gigs for Women has always adopted a ‘pre-emptive’ stance, tackling negative attitudes and behaviours before they have the chance to escalate, and it is our hope that a partnership with Skiddle will allow us to achieve that on a larger scale than ever before.”